As President Bush announces plans to escalate the war in Iraq and send over 20,000 more troops, we go to Najaf to get response from Sami Rasouli, an Iraqi-American living in Najaf. [includes rush transcript]

Sami Rasouli, an Iraqi-American who grew up in Najaf. He left in the late 1970s and eventually moved to the United States. In November 2004, nearly 30 years after leaving Iraq, Sami returned home to help rebuild his country. He is currently a member of the Muslim Peacemakers Team in Najaf.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMYGOODMAN: We go now to Najaf. Sami Rasouli is there. He is an Iraqi American currently living in Najaf. He grew up in Iraq, left in the late ’70s, eventually moved to the United States, lived in Minneapolis, where he opened a restaurant serving Middle Eastern cuisine. It was a watering hole for people particularly concerned about the war. In November 2004, nearly 30 years after leaving Iraq, Sami returned home to help rebuild his country. He is currently a member of and established the Muslim Peacemakers Team in Najaf. Sami, welcome to Democracy Now! Can you respond to President Bush calling for 20,000 more troops — apparently this has already begun — to be moved into Iraq?

SAMIRASOULI: Thank you, Amy, and good to hear your voice and part of your program here in Najaf. Actually, Amy, for the last four days, I couldn’t get a shower, because there is no electricity, there is no heating, so water’s so cold in this harsh winter in Iraq, because Iraq has a continental climate that’s very cold in the winter and very hot in the summer. So as I speak to you, I really stink. And as the increasing prices in the economy that’s collapsing stink and the Iraqi government policy stinks, even the American policy, that so-called surge in Iraq, stinks, too, because, as you know and Iraqis know and the others, that the occupation is a form of war. So any escalation in this type of war, the resistance is going to escalate, too.

And I just want to remind you and remind whoever is listening that Alberto Fernandez is a senior official in the, I think, foreign affairs in Middle East in the State Department. Once, he was interviewed by Al Jazeera, and he stated that the American government exercised, in their occupation of Iraq and the policies, kind of stupidity and arrogance. And I would like to add the ignorance, too, because I don’t think who is leading in the White House understand the people, the culture, the history of the region.

Sending 20,000, as I understand and the Iraqis see it, is just a substitute for the losses of the US men and women in uniform who fell either dead or severely injured. If you remember, there were about 160,000 of American men and women when the occupation started, and now, before those 20,000, we have like almost 140,000. Margaret Beckett, out of London, the foreign minister, she declined to send any forces, British forces; neither, the Australian. So it’s the sole job of this occupation to be exercised in Iraq by the US forces, unfortunately.

And, as we know, how many people got killed? According to _Lancet_’s study, about 655,000 so far; Iraqis claim it’s over a million. That, added to the million-and-a-half of Iraqis got killed during the sanctions.

If you remember, when Baker III met Tariq Aziz back in 1991 and warned Tariq and his government, delivering him a letter to the president of Iraq at that time, Saddam Hussein, telling him, 'If you don't withdraw from Kuwait, we will bring about the country to stone age.’ And now, I’m experiencing, unfortunately, this stone age. We don’t have gasoline, we don’t have kerosene, to have our families warmed in this winter.

And if I understand from the President’s statement that he is sending this 20,000 to protect Saudis, Jordanians and the Egyptians and the Gulf States, who are the allies of the US for the last 30 years and so, so from whom to protect them? From the Iraqi resistance forces? This is another lie added to the White House policymakers, who keeps just sustaining their lies by another lies since the war started. And it seems to us and others that we forgot what’s the reason that the US sent its troops in the first place.

AMYGOODMAN: We’re talking to Sami Rasouli in Najaf. We also have Leslie Cagan, national coordinator of United for Peace and Justice in Washington, D.C. Leslie Cagan, what are your plans right now, United for Peace and Justice? Just reading a piece in the Washington Post quoting Virginia Congressmember Jim Moran, saying today John Murtha, the Pennsylvania congress member, most known for his early call for troops to withdraw, will report back to the committee he now heads, which is the Subcommittee on Appropriations on Defense, reporting back about plans that could attach so many conditions and benchmarks to the funds that it would be all but impossible to spend the money without running afoul of Congress. This is talking about funding for the war. And House Majority Whip James Clyburn from South Carolina is quoted as saying, "21,500 troops ought to have 21,500 strings attached to them."

LESLIECAGAN: Right. Well, we think it is critical at this moment to put the pressure — obviously, to keep the pressure on the Bush administration, but to expand pressure on the Congress. It is great that some of these members of Congress are now speaking out against the war, but they have a power that none of the rest of us has. And that is, they control the money, they control the budget. If the United States Congress was to say no more money for this war, either for the escalation of the war or for maintaining it at the present troop levels — no more money for this war — well, indeed, that would have a profound impact on their ability to carry out the war.

So let me just mention two things that are in motion. One is, today, all around the country, in at least 500 different places, there are activities, events, protests, vigils, calling on the President to back away from this insane plan to send more troops. That was a very quick turnaround to organize that, and we’re doing that with Win Without War, True Majority, a whole bunch of groups. And there’s a website, americasaysno.org, that everyone can go to and find where there’s a protest in your neighborhood, in your community.

And then, in just a few weeks, on Saturday, January 27th, people from every corner of the country are gathering here in Washington, where I am right now, to march around the Capitol, to deliver our message: it is time to end the war. The people spoke. The voters of this country had their opportunity in November to make their voices heard. Now we’re saying to Congress, "You need to act on the will of the people of this country." So on Saturday, January 27th, people will be getting on buses and trains and carpools and every other manner of transportation and gathering here in Washington on the Mall between 3rd Street and 7th Street at 11:00 a.m. in the morning and delivering this message. And on top of that, we’re asking people to stay here in Washington for a few more days to do a massive lobby day on Monday, the 29th of January. All of this information is on our website, unitedforpeace.org. We encourage you to get more information about today’s protest and then the humungous — we believe will be a humungous march on Washington on Saturday, January 27th.

AMYGOODMAN: Leslie Cagan, I want to thank you for being with us in Washington, D.C., national coordinator of United for Peace and Justice, and Sami Rasouli, founder of the Muslim Peacemakers Team, speaking to us from Najaf. Also, earlier, Sergeant Ronn Cantu, Army sergeant in the First Cavalry Division, was enlisted in the military, redeployed to Iraq, now one of more than a thousand active-duty soldiers who have signed an Appeal for Redress that’s being presented to Congress next week. And if you’ve just tuned in, we encourage you to go to our website at democracynow.org, where you can hear that exclusive interview with an active-duty soldier in Iraq opposed to the escalation, calling for troops to come home. And we will also link to his pieces; among them, Sergeant Cantu’s " One Soldier’s Musings: The Death of a Pro-War Conservative, or the Day I Got Away with Murder."